How to Deploy OpenStack Heat Templates

Applies to:

OpenStack version(s) F5 Agent | F5 Driver
Queens v9.8.1 v13.x
Pike
v9.6.x | v12.x
+———– | v11.x
Ocata
Newton
v10.x
Mitaka
v9.x

Use the instructions provided here to deploy any of the templates in F5’s heat orchestration template library.

OpenStack CLI

Platform Requirements

The OpenStack Heat documentation extensively covers creation and management of Heat stacks. This document describes F5’s OpenStack development team’s preferred means of stack creation:

  • define a Heat template’s required parameters in a YAML file, and
  • deploy the template via the command line.

Note

This example uses the F5-supported Deploy basic load balancer template.

  1. Download the template you want to deploy from the F5-Supported Heat templates library.

  2. Save the definition for each of the template’s required configuration parameters in an environment file.

    Example: Environment file for the deploy-lb Heat template
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    parameters:
  client_server_image: <image-name>
  client_server_flavor: <nova-flavor>
  key_name: <ssh-hey-name>
  client_server_sec_group: open
  client_network: <client_vlan>
  server_network: <server_vlan>
  bigip_un: $BIGIP_USER
  bigip_pw: $BIGIP_PASS
  vs_name: virtual_server1
  pool_name: pool1
  bigip_fip:
  vs_vip:
  vs_port: 443
  pool_member_port: 8080

    Replace the following parameters with the appropriate values for your environment.

    • image
    • flavor
    • ssh-key
    • security group
    • network

    Tip

    Protect your BIG-IP login information.

    Store your username and password as environment variables and reference them in your environment file.

  3. Create the Heat stack.

    openstack stack create -f deploy-lb.yaml -e deploy-lb.params.yaml

OpenStack Horizon

Follow the directions below to deploy a Heat stack using the OpenStack Horizon dashboard.

  1. Go to Orchestration ‣ Stacks.
  2. Click Launch Stack.
  3. Choose the Template File from its location on your machine, then click Next.
  4. Provide the information required for the Heat engine to build your stack.
  5. Click Launch.

Hint

In the Stacks table, the status changes to Create complete when the deployment finishes.